In Competition No. 3140 you were invited to submit a poem in the style of a famous poet in which they make a surprising confession.
It’s elbow-bumps all round this week: an excellent entry. Douglas G. Brown reveals the raciness (gin; trollops) that lurks beneath Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s high-minded exterior. Nick MacKinnon exposes the jolly, ‘Kumbaya’-singing side of misery guts Larkin. And E.E. Cummings fesses up, via Christopher Davies:
it’stime(i came clean)my typewriter(is)broken.
Commendations to Peter Mills, Paul A. Freeman, David Silverman, P.M. Davidson and Lachlan Rurlander. The winners earn £25 each.
Breathes there a man with mind so prim That he would ne’er indulge the whimOf borrowing his lady’s dressThat he might feel its sweet caress ’Stead harsh constriction in his breeks? Scorn not the cumbered man who seeks,As I confess that I have done, A solace that is swiftly wonBy wearing petticoats of silkAnd other garments of that ilk.When
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